Chris Baker (3)

This is a sequel to Kokopu Dreams, carrying on from just before that book left off. Structurally, the main problem it has is that it bounces around between characters–in the early chapters, we get introduced to new people as the characters meet him, then followed VM until they meet yet more people, and so forth. I kept having to go back several pages to remind myself who these new people were. But once the plot gets going, it's much stronger than the first book, with a clear problem and resolution. It's less about the post-apocalyptic setting (this, perhaps, is a shame), and more about the increasing encounters the survivors have with magic folk. As with the skewed treatment of women from the first book, the woman we meet near the beginning is primarily characterised as a rape survivor, but as the book gets going the main female character is characterised by her skills, power, and love.… (plus d'informations)

New Zealand post-apocalyptic fantasy: rabbit calicivirus has mutated and devastated the population of New Zealand while the rest of the world has succumbed to ebola. I love the early chapters especially for the way the communities get on with what's necessary to survive - this is no libertarian fantasy; people need each other. (It is a bit of a back-to-nature fantasy, otoh. One day I must write a post-apocalypse in which everyone realises that going back to nature sucks big time and desperately works to maintain as much technology as possible.) The black humour rang very true as well.

It did still have the "Manly men must protect themselves from packs of dogs and gangs of irredeemably bad guys" trope in abundance. Women were mostly there to proffer sage advice, be traumatised, get raped, and eventually marry and procreate. Speaking of procreation, the psychology behind the "After a huge population decline everyone has sex like bunnies" thing seemed way off - it was treated like an involuntary biological impulse, something akin to diarrhea; rather than being a comfort, a pleasure, a brief escape from horror, it's seen as a phase that they're hoping they'll get over as soon as possible.

On a broader scale, the supernatural cause behind the outbreak of the virus never felt adequately explained. It was all very vague from the start, but there I accepted it assuming the mystery would be explored and made clear. We did learn some, but I never thought we learned enough for the protagonist to be able to complete his quest and I couldn't even work out what he did do or why it worked. To be fair, the rules are different with faeries so this might just be my own ignorance of Maeroero… (plus d'informations)